I have also been trying to locate information on the viewpoints of
the candidatess on stem cell research -- including the Democratic
candidates as well. So far, only can find information on McCain, but I
found the following two articles which indicate the focus of debate may
be moving from the NIH to the Congress. The first is about opposing bills
on funding  the research and the 4 Senators sponsoring them. The second
is long, but gives great backgound info on both the scientific and
political issues - from BOTH sides. BOth articles are from this week's
Congressional Quarterly Weekly magazine.
    Does anyone have more info on these bills?
Linda Herman

     CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
     Feb. 19, 2000
    Dominant Voices
     By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff

         The upcoming debate over whether to allow federal funding of
     embryonic stem cell research will be dominated by a handful of
     lawmakers.
     Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
         Specter chairs the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human
     Services, and Education subcommittee that oversees the budget of
     the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After initially
     expressing reservations over the legal and moral implications of
     stem cell research, Specter is pushing legislation with Sen. Tom
     Harkin, D-Iowa, that would allow federally funded scientists not
     only to do the work, but also to derive human embryonic stem
     cells from embryos donated by fertility clinics. The bill would
     bar the creation of human embryos for their stem cells and would
     ban the use of cloning technology with stem cells to create a
     human being.

     Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
         A champion of conservative causes with close personal and
     political ties to religious activists, Brownback has emerged as
     the point person in congressional efforts to bar federal funding
     for embryonic stem cell research. Brownback describes draft NIH
     guidelines endorsing the research as an attempt to flout a 1995
     congressional ban on embryo research. "Clearly, the destruction
     of human beings is an integral part of the contemplated
     research," he says.

     Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark.
         The first Republican to represent southern Arkansas since
     Reconstruction, Dickey authored the 1995 ban on federally funded
     research using human embryos. Dickey says this should extend to
     stem cell research.

     Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
         Cosponsor with Specter of the pro-stem cell research bill,
     Harkin is one of the Senate's leading champions of the disabled
     and has fought for increased funding for breast cancer research.

                             Source: CQ Weekly
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CQ WEEKLY - SCIENCE
     Feb. 19, 2000
        Senate Argues Promise and Peril Of Human Stem Cell Research
     By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff

         Biomedical science appears to be on a collision course with
     abortion politics as Congress prepares to begin debate on whether
     to endorse federal funding of research on human embryonic stem
     cells.

         These "master cells" are capable of evolving into nearly
     every kind of tissue in the body and could hold the key to curing
     conditions such as Parkinson's disease and healing spinal cord
     injuries. But anti-abortion critics contend that stem cell
     research falls under the 1995 congressional ban on embryo
     research. (1995 CQ Almanac, p. 11-58)

         The issue threatened to hold up passage of a Labor, Health and
Human Services (HHS) and Education appropriations bill last September
until Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Appropriations
Labor-HHS Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,agreed to drop
language endorsing the research
     and take it up as a separate bill this year.(1999 CQ Weekly, p.
2294)

         Specter and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, have introduced legislation
(S 2015) that would allow government-funded scientists both to conduct
the
     research and to extract stem cells from embryos donated by fertility
clinics that otherwise would have discarded them. Specter has scheduled
     a Feb. 22 hearing on stem cell research in the Appropriations
subcommittee.

         The same day, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will close
the public comment period on draft guidelines issued in December that
endorse federally funded stem cell research but stop short of allowing
NIH-supported researchers to extract them. A group of conservative
lawmakers led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., with support from such
abortion opponents as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, is
pressuring NIH to withdraw the guidelines, saying they run counter to the
1995 ban and effectively encourage the destruction of human life.

         Anti-abortion groups take the position that stem cells are the
equivalent of embryos and merit the same status as a human being. But in
sorting through such philosophical questions as when life begins,
lawmakers could find themselves in the awkward position of regulating a
nascent but promising branch of the health sciences.

         "Stem cell research is one of the most critical issues affecting
the future of the biomedical community" Ronald M. Green, chairman of the
Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College, said in an interview Feb. 15.
"It's forcing us  to rethink our ethical, moral and religious
considerations. It cuts very deep to the bone and is triggering a major
health lobbying effort."

         Among those watching the debate closely are drug companies,
which believe they can use stem cells to create new anti-aging  products
and cures for a variety of degenerative diseases. The  most prominent
player is Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, Calif., biotechnology company that
has funded groundbreaking stem cell research at the University of
Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins  University.

         Scientists and advocacy groups for victims of various diseases
are strongly lobbying in favor of federally funded  research, saying the
cells could be the source of healthy  replacement tissue for sufferers of
heart disease and a host of
     other afflictions. Advocates say the cells also offer the best
glimpse yet into the earliest stages of human development, which could
yield a new understanding of birth defects and improve the  way drugs are
designed. Those in favor of federal funding for  research include Sen.
Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., an abortion foe  whose daughter suffers from
juvenile diabetes, and 67 U.S. Nobel  Prize winners.

         "The vast majority of Americans strongly support the
     advancement of biomedical research through the application of
     their tax dollars," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the
     Alliance for Aging Research. "Surveys consistently show Americans
     want to see greater efforts against serious and life-threatening
     diseases."

         But opponents of stem cell research say the scientists are
     essentially proposing to destroy life to advance their research.
     The opponents, who believe that life begins at conception, argue
     that stem cells, while biologically primitive, are distinct
     entities that deserve the same moral status as a person. The
     critics say scientists tend to emphasize the biological aspects
     of their research while downplaying the way stem cells are
     extracted from embryos. And they fear advances in cloning
     technology soon will lead researchers to create embryos solely
     for the purpose of extracting stem cells.

         "The embryonic stem cell research being proposed by NIH is
     illegal, immoral and unnecessary," Brownback said at a Feb. 7
     news conference. "There are legitimate areas of research which
     are showing more promise than embryonic stem cell research and
     which do not create moral and ethical difficulties."

         Lawmakers joining Brownback in the effort to block funding
     for stem cell research include 19 mostly conservative Republican
     senators, among them Lott and Assistant Majority Leader Don
     Nickles of Oklahoma, and several lawmakers who traditionally have
     not been vocal opponents of embryo research, such as Pete V.
     Domenici, R-N.M. Also in the group is Republican presidential
     candidate John McCain of Arizona, who recently came under fire
     from Texas Gov. George W. Bush, campaigning in advance of the
     South Carolina GOP primary, for his support of fetal tissue
     research.

     Past Battles Recalled

         In some ways, the debate recalls past congressional battles
     over cloning and fetal tissue research that also challenged some
     lawmakers' fundamental beliefs about life. But stem cells may
     have even more profound meaning, say experts such as Dartmouth's
     Green, because they offer the highest-resolution view yet of the
     beginning of human development.

         Stem cells are microscopic clumps of dozens of cells that
     reside inside days-old embryos. When isolated in culture dishes,
     stem cells can differentiate into specific types such as heart
     muscle cells or brain cells. They can also divide indefinitely in
     the laboratory, providing a potentially never-ending supply of
     replacement parts and organs.

         However, because the field of stem cell research is not even
     two decades old, scientists still do not understand the mechanism
     through which these master cells evolve into certain body parts,
     or how they can be coaxed into becoming a particular type of
     cell. With federal funding, researchers believe, they can unlock
     these secrets and use stem cells for such purposes as creating
     healthy insulin-producing pancreas cells for sufferers of
     diabetes or new nerve cells for individuals with spinal cord
     injuries.

         The stem cell debate took on added urgency in 1998 after
     researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins
     University, working separately, became the first scientists to
     isolate human stem cells. The Wisconsin team extracted stem cells
     from embryos donated by fertility clinics, while the Johns
     Hopkins scientists extracted stem cells from the gonads of
     aborted fetuses.

         Both teams of scientists, unsure whether their work was
     violating the congressional embryo research ban, avoided using
     public funding and relied on private money from Geron and other
     sources. Since then, the University of Wisconsin has created the
     nonprofit WiCell Research Institute, which will sell embryonic
     stem cells for research purposes.

         Further complicating the debate is the fact that there are
     different types of stem cells. Scientists say stem cells can be
     extracted from umbilical cord blood and from adult human beings.
     But those cells are not biologically equivalent to stem cells
     taken from embryos and do not appear as capable of evolving into
     many different cell types. Opponents of embryonic stem cell
     research say more federal money should be spent on studying how
     these "adult stem cells" can be harvested and used to cure
     disease.

         The 1995 congressional ban on embryo research was authored by
     Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., and bars spending federal taxpayer money
     on biomedical research involving embryos outside the womb.
     However, the measure did not take into account the extraction of
     stem cells. Dickey has attached his measure to the annual
     appropriations bills that fund NIH. But attempts to modify it to
     specifically address stem cells were dropped last year as part of
     an effort by Republican congressional leaders to avoid
     controversial riders that might force political showdowns with
     the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, NIH has temporarily halted
     any stem cell research while it develops guidelines.

         Observers say lawmakers on both sides of the debate have
     several options. Those opposed to funding the research can try to
     muster support to change the wording of Dickey's ban so that it
     explicitly mentions stem cell research. Supporters can try to
     endorse stem cell research by passing a stand-alone measure like
     Specter's.

         If no consensus emerges, as many expect, lawmakers can elect
     to let the ban stand and defer to NIH on the issue of stem cell
     research. Such a move would likely pave the way for federal
     scientists to begin research, but only if they obtained stem
     cells from privately funded entities, research institutions or
     biotech companies. Opponents contend that such a policy would
     flout the 1995 ban and trigger legal challenges.

         With Republicans again eager to avoid controversial measures
     attached to spending bills, congressional sources expect heated
     debates to develop in the Senate and House over stand-alone stem
     cell bills.

         Spokesmen for Dickey and Brownback said last week that
     neither lawmaker has immediate plans to introduce a bill banning
     stem cell research. But both have reiterated that the destruction
     of embryos, which they view as a clear violation of the law, is
     an integral part of such research.

         Advocates of stem cell research, meanwhile, are trying to
     convince uncommitted lawmakers that barring federal funding for
     the work will not stop scientists from extracting stem cells.
     Instead, the advocates argue, it will allow companies like Geron
     to proceed unchecked and control the supply and use of stem
     cells. The advocates say it is far preferable to have NIH
     overseeing the work because it ensures that more scientists will
     apply for grants and get involved in the field.

         "We believe the [NIH] guidelines as proposed will enable this
     critical research to advance while simultaneously protecting the
     moral and ethical sensibilities of the American people," Paul
     Berg, the 1980 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, wrote on behalf of
     the American Society for Cell Biology, one of the groups
     supporting federally funded research.